Facebook is making 3 big changes to its NewsFeed algorithm, and publishers should be worried

For the past year and a half, a number of publishers and Facebook
page owners have benefitted from a surge of traffic sent to them
by the social network. Publishers post content to Facebook with
links, and thousands — or millions — of Facebook users see it and
interact with it.

But publishers have also known that the flood of traffic may not
last, and Facebook says it's making three big changes to its
NewsFeed algorithm that could mean these traffic glory days may
soon be over soon.

"We want to let you know about a change that may affect referral
traffic for publishers," Facebook product manager
Max Eulenstein and user experience researcher Lauren
Scissors
wrote in a blog post Tuesday. "In some
cases, post reach and referral traffic could
potentially decline."

Here are the three big changes, as outlined by Scissors and
Eulenstein:

Facebook users will now be able to see more than one
NewsFeed post from the same source in a row.
Facebook's algorithm previously prevented that. Facebook says
it's "relaxing this rule" so that users who don't see much
content in their feeds can start seeing more.

Facebook will start prioritizing NewsFeed content
posted by friends. "The second update tries to
ensure that content posted directly by the friends you care
about, such as photos, videos, status updates or links, will be
higher up in News Feed so you are less likely to miss it,"
Facebook writes. It says you'll still see content from news
organizations and Facebook pages you enjoy though.

Facebook will begin hiding posts that say what
your friends have liked or commented on. This sounds
like it could really diminish a publisher's second-hand reach.
"This update will make these stories appear lower down in
News Feed or not at all," Facebook says.

The first algorithm change may
actually be good for publishers as people will now be able to see
more than one of their articles in a row. The last two points are
more worrisome. Basically, if people enjoy content written by
friends more than publishers, they'll start seeing friends' posts
more and publishers' posts less. The third point could hurt
publishers' reach and virality by removing or limiting all
second-hand interactions with their content from the
NewsFeed.

The updates should be rolling
out over the next several weeks, according to a Facebook
spokesperson.

It's also important to keep in mind that the impact on
publishers will vary considerably. What you see in your NewsFeed
depends on a variety of factors, such as the pages you follow,
the content you interact with, and the people you're close to.
So, even if you don't follow a lot of news outlets on Facebook,
if friends that you interact with a lot are constantly sharing
stories, you might still those stories high up in your NewsFeed,
a Facebook spokesperson explained.

The move comes just after Google made a
big change to its mobile search algorithm that will
favor mobile-friendly websites over desktop sites. The change
sounds minor, but it could potentially be really damaging for
millions of websites that could lose out on traffic since their
page ranking might be affected. The change has even earned itself
the nickname "Mobile-geddon," although
it's likely to affect small businesses the most rather than
publishers.